Partial Reductive Paraphrase: Toward More Transparent Requirements

Partial Reductive Paraphrase: Toward More Transparent Requirements Kimberly S. Wasson Department of Computer Science University of Virginia 151 Engineer’s Way Charlottesville, VA 22904-4740 [email protected] Partial Reductive Paraphrase (PRP) is a method for constructing explications, a specific kind of definition, for use in requirements documents. Explications avoid common weaknesses of definitions produced by other methods and encourage effective representation of the information most critical to the application domain at hand, allowing better understanding on the part of requirements users. This paper introduces PRP and demonstrates how it is used to construct explications of concepts and present them for accessibility to users. PRP explications are provided for concepts drawn from industrial requirements documents and are then evaluated relative to analogous definitions produced by other methods. The PRP explications are shown to be free of specific faults that otherwise result. Finally, means by which PRP can be integrated into the requirements process are addressed.